Darin Bastedo

But you don't need the real car, to do that. you simply need to hire the several people in this thread who can judge the accuracy of a kit by simply looking at photographs.

What's this "we" stuff kemosabe? IIRC in the thread containing the pics of the hand built master there were no posts at all by you, and what suggestions that were brought up such as the door handle position were addressed and corrected. My only comment in the thread was that I liked the kit, and that holds true today. The time to have leveled your criticism would have been then when the master was still in the hands of the master builder.

Bart, I have no rose colored glasses, I gave mine to Elton John, but what I see are small errors that do not dampen my enthusiasm over the big picture. That picture is, that this is a good, detailed model of a subject I want to build. Having lived through the 70's when just about every model on the shelf was a Custom Van, 4x4 pick up, Pinto Mustang Camaro Corvette or Pacer. I'm loving the diversity of kits we have now today. You can Poo-Poo this kit all you want but at this stage only small alterationas are possible.What you see is what you get. I know there are things he can't fix now. Why should I dwell on those. If given the choice a Flawed model kit of a new and interesiting subject, and a steady diet of Camaros, Corvettes, Mustangs and such I'll take the flawed kit.

Yes as a matter of fact I have driven a Cobra. I took a few medium hot laps around watkins glen in 1993. I've also driven a few cobra replicas, as well as a Hennessy Viper with 650 horsepower. does this matter? nope. the fact is the Son did some really nice controlled drifts, and the old man would have done better had he put his foot in it a little more.

Cato You can say what you want, but I have had much more than just some experience with on Cobra in my hometown. I've been a member of SAAC from the early eighties until last year when I let my dues lapse due to a family emergency. The cobra Community is small and I've never heard of you before, unless you are using an assumed name. That said, regardless of whether they used etching primer or not many cobras have been driven in the rain with no ill effects. Cobras aren't fragile cars. that is what made them champions. but I'm not going to have long drawn out argument with you over trivial technical item on 50 year old cars. but since you are so concerned with weather CSX2521 will melt in the rain, let me assure you it won't. It's been fully restored and they used etching primer on the chassis, and I'm sure Jim will take really good car of his baby. He did afterall pay an awful lot for it.

Actually just about every form of racing is a young man's sport. Just about evry young gun who makes it to the show, has won a title somewhere. If you are at Indy you probably have a Kart championship under your belt, or world of outlaws, same thing with nascar, if you are racing in the cup, you probably have a long list of short track vistories. You want names of young guys when they started? How about Paul Tracy Danica Patrick, Al Unser jr, Kyle Petty, Dale Earnhardt, Dale Earnhardt jr, Micheal Andretti, Carroll Shelby, Senna, Schumacher Fangio, Enzo ferrari. They all started in their early twenties. As fror the pimply faced kid, he doesn't have a racing career, but he does have a lot of experience driving very fast cars. He didn't just jump out of a Honda Civic and into a Cobra. As far as a lack of skill goes, you obviously have never done donuts in a Cobra. the power to wieght ratio combined with the short wheelbase, makes it very difficult to control. They did just fine.

It's like Nick Mason said about letting friends drive his 1962 ferrari 250 GTO. It's handbuilt, if it gets pranged, you get a new part made. Don't forget that it's less expensive to build a new cobra completely from scratch than it cost to buy one, so no amout of damage short of one getting melted down, can't be fixed. You really can't total out a $400,000 Cobra. at today's values, even this one is a fixer-upper...

Yeah that's what confused me too. maybe they got some free for bailing out GM?

In the burnout video, it was both him and his son, and yeah, it's pointless, but it looks like in the video, everyone was having fun except the dog.

He's the son of the owner, and has driven many a high powered car. for the record the dad was doing the burnouts too, it wasn't just some kid plying with daddy's car.

The rain they were driving in was hardly a monsoon. The only part of the cobra that could possibly get damageed my driving it in the rain, is the carpeting, which in the case of this car isn't even the original carpeting. so down the road yeah he might need new carpets but I'm fairly sure he's got enough bank to cover that. As far as Cobras being "crappy bare steel in many places", the only steel used on a Cobra is the Chassis which was painted black at the factory. The body panels, interior panels (except the Fiberglass foot wells) the radiator shrouding, and trunk panels (again except the tire carrier whish was also made of fiberglass) are all made out of aluminium. The engine was painted cast iron. there was no "crappy bare steel" on any cobra. The Spoke wheels were plenty srong on the cobras also. The earliest cobras raced had spoke wheels and never once was there a wheel failure in any race. as a matter of fact the one of the hub carriers broke and the wheel was fine. The only reason that the race cars swithed to magnesium wheels were for lighter wiegt. The only reason the Street 427 Cobra didn't get wires were the wire wheels weren't available at production time, and there were a shortage of the Halibrand racing wheel also, so Pete Brock designed the Sunburst wheel for it. The wire would have been plenty strong for even a 427. For the record he Jim was about to replace the tires on this, and was just having some fun. The sory goes though that one of the first things Carroll and the boys did in CSX2000 was donuts. so much for missing apoint.

Here's som shots of CSX2521 in it's previos life in Central NY before it's restoration and it's move to Hawaii.

Actually that "pimply faced kid" is an accomplished driver. I'm guessing you somehow think that there should be an age limit for cars like this. Lewis Hamilton was only 23 years old when he won his first FI race. would you call him a pimply faced kid and tell him he shouldn't drive a Cobra. Jim Blue, the owner of this car does drive it regularly on the street as well as his other car, a 1959 Porsche Carrera GT Speedster.

This is CSX2521, a car that I'm very familiar with it's the first Cobra I every saw close up, and is originall from my hometowm. here is her new owner giving it a work out. looks like fun huh? Carroll would be proud!

Threads like this remind me of the spnking - no spanking debate that goes on in parenting discussions. it's often the context and the way that it is done that makes a difference ex. it's ok to give the kid a few swats on the behind to get thier attention but not to beat the snot out of them. here its the same thing, it's not what is done but how and why. In one of my posts I showcase the model of a 61 ford falcon in which I credited Marc Nellis for inspiring. He posted a pic of his falcon with a message along the lines of "you mean this one" and showed a black ford falcon done in his style. While I had not meant that car in particular, it did illustrate my point, but not only that. I got to see a build of his that I had some how missed. Did I feel my post was being taken over? no, it added to the discussion and added to my enjoyment of the board. On the other hand one time I had an in-progress post where I was showing the build of my 427 cobra, and someone chose to post the entire summery of Shelby production data. that was mildly irritating. The thread was not a research thread on real cobras but on how to build a scale model of one. Production statitics had nothing at all to do with the subject. BTW if you are the guy who did the posting, I'm not angry at you, and I don't recall off hand who did it, I'm just using it as an example. note I said it was just mildly irritating. Like I said we don't need to say "don't post pictures in other people's threads" we just need to be careful about why we are doing it.

While I was in Baltimore I spotted a cadillac CTS-V all black with police lights inside behind the windshield and rear window. It had DHS plates (dept of Homeland security) a full compliment of police gear inside (computer, radio, fence, and an automatic rifle.)No other markings. which branch of DHS would need this type of car?

Dave, You had me at "Hudson". But seriously I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart foe; 1. Coming out with some new tool model car kits rather than buying the rights to some obscure old kits and putting those out. 2. For going out on a limb and producing something that not only isn't availble elsewhere, but is not your typical Ford Chevy Dodge stuff. 3. For tooling up a full detail kit, rather than some Tamiya / fujimi/ aoshima "detailed engine insert" or worse yet a promo style curbside. I will be buying at least 4 of these, one to do as a Custom, one to do stock, one to do as a stock car, and one just for the engine to put in a hot rod. As for the errors, to me they are small, and won't bother me in the least.

I'll be in town and was hoping to meet some of you guys.

I've been really studying the photos of the model, to see if I can tell if the body is "shoe-box like" and because of the lighting and the angle it's reall hard to tell, but it looks to me like in some of the shots, the angle of the door lines, is making it look that way. I'm judging this by how different it looks from the rear 3/4 angle and the front 3/4 angle. I went back and looked at the earlier hand built master, and unless they changed the shape since then it looks pretty round to me. but I could be wrong. Another conern that was brought up in this topic was that it appeared that the axle in the rear mounted to both the frame and the springs. From this picture that appears to be the case. whether that bugs me or not will depend on how visible it is after the model is complete. Again we will all know soon enough when the model hits the shelves. I know I will buy at least one for sure, if only because I like the subject.

But I bet if you had owned both a fastback and a coupe you would have noticed.

Well not quite the only non-big three vintage kit... AMT 1953 Studebaker Johan 1959 Ramblers muliple 1940-41 willys from AMT and Revell Revell Henry J Revell Austin coupe Monogram 1931 Deusenberg (muliple variations) Monogram Cord Lindberg/pyro Auburn Speedster I'm sure there are others but I think you get my point

Unfortunately, as dave pointed out in an earlier comment, the technology exists, but they cannot afford it. someday perhaps, but until thenwe have to rely on human input, which can be flawed.

That has happened to me often, but not nessesarily because the camara sees things more accurately than my eyes, but because the model I see on my computer screen is four times larger than the one on my work bench. small scratches or imperfections show up that much larger when i look at them in Photoshop. That said, I'm not saying that anyone is wrong about the percived inaccuacies, i'm just saying that for most of them I'm waiting to see it in the plastic before passing final judgement.

While it's true that if something is grossly off you can see it in the photo, but what you see still isn't axactly the way it is. Subtle shapes can be obscurred enough to look wrong, and even an unfortunate reflection of something near the model can fool us into seeing a different shape than what is there.

Pictures lie everytime. The camera lens distorts, there is no way to deny that very simple scientific fact. Have you ever heard the phrase "The camera adds ten pounds."? that is due to the inherant distortion due to the fact that the camara cannot replicate the way your eyes can see an object. If it didn't distort, my Photoshop CS2 wouldn't have a tool to correct it. That said we cannot on one hand decry the model makers use of photographs instead of the 1:1 car, ("because they can't see the subtle nuance of the shapes and proportions") and then on the other hand claim that we can tell the accuracy of the shapes and nuances of the model kit by looking at photos. If this were the case Mobius could have saved themselves a lot of time and money by simply emailing Dave, Art, and, others photos of the test shot. As a photographer, not only am I aware of the camera's distortion, but I often use it to enhance an effect. Having photographed thousands of real cars as well as models, I can tell you that not only does the camrera distort, it does so differently for 1:1 Cars compared to Models due to what is called scale effect. because you cannot shrink your camara to 1/25 scale, the lense is larger in proportion to the field of vision when photographing a scale model. That is why your camera has macro settings for that purpose. Add to this the fact that different camaras with different lenses distort differently. The setting you use such as zoom, macro etc. changes the distortion, and each model of camara is different in how well those settings work, and how that affects the distortion. So simply the fact that the model was photographed with a different camera than used on the 1:1 can change how accurately the subject is presented. Even if you had a model that was an exact replica of the full size car exactly scaled in every dimension, photographed with the same camera you couldn't overlay a photo of it over a photo of the 1:1 car taken at the exact same angle, and have it line up. Until one of us has the model in our hands and can compare it to a real full size Hudson (not a picture of it) will we be able to see for ourselves how acurately shaped it is. Art Anderson has held it in his hands, he also is an authority on the real car. He says it looks good. For now I will take his word for it until I see in person evidence to the contrary.